Jan Johnson

Whew... where to begin?  Most of the time when you purchase a self-published book you expect to read a lot of vanity garbage and I always steer clear of that.  But I had to buy Jan Johnson's awkwardly titled, "The High Flyer and the Cultural Revolution Journal of the Osage Orange, Pt. 1."  It's a head scratching title

Jan Johnson was a world class pole vaulter in the early 1970's.  He set a world record in the vault and ended up with the Olympic bronze medal at the 1972 Munich games which probably should have been silver but that's a whole different story.

I purchased the book because my path had crossed with Jan's while he was at the University of Kansas.  He was a friend of a friend.  I remember he was niceguy and I have stamped on my brain his record setting 17' 7" jump for a world record at the NCAA Championships which landed the Jayhawks second place at nationals.

I didn't expect much, just a lot of silly stories and insight into track at Kansas.  What I got was so much more.  Jan serves up a seascape of growing up on the south side of industrial Chicago.  It's full of the grit and grim of the 1960's.  He sees the world as a color blind youth growing up in a integrated world and ends up as a top notch track and field athlete at Bloom High School.

Johnson wasn't just a national class pole vaulter as a prep.  He was a top flight sprinter and a fine long jumper.  I suspect if he wasn't so in love with the pole vault he would have been a world class decathlete.

Jan's parents wanted their son to go to nearby Indiana or Ohio State.  He settled on Kansas because assistant coach John Mitchell had established himself as a first class vaulting coach.  Plus, Kansas was in the midst of its heyday as a national track and field power under Bob Timmons and besides, who wouldn't want to go to college with the great Jim Ryun?

What makes the story telling so great is that Jan kept a journal.  He detailed everything that was going on in his life, from competition to life on campus.  He came to Lawrence and discovered a community embroiled by the politics of the Vietnam War and racial unrest.  Johnson was shocked by the racism he encountered in a supposedly liberal college town, things he had never seen in the hallways of Bloom.

I saw what he saw.  I lived through part of what he lived.  His book also reawakened old feelings I had about Kansas coach Bob Timmons.  Timmy was a no-nonsense ex-Marine who expected his athletes to be clean cut and well dressed.  Johnson was held out of two key competitions early in his career at Kansas because his hair was too long.  

But what I wanted to know was why Jan left Kansas after two years of competition and transferred to Alabama?  At the time none of it made any sense.  A rising distance star Brian McElroy also left K.U. at the same time.  The rumors surrounding their departure centered on a trip to the Caribbean and some college drinking high jinks.  Johnson writes about it but whether he revealed all of the gory details of that night out is still unclear.

What is clear is that Johnson was run off the K.U. track team because he wanted to stand up for the rights of athletes.  He writes about a previously unknown trip he took to California with activist Jack Scott at the beginning of his junior year.  That trip stirred up a hornets nest.  But it made it clear that Timmons and Athletic Director Wade Stinson couldn't cope or deal with the changing cultural standards that was part of the world.  That includes outright racism on the part of the athletics administration and NCAA violations that could have sunk the track and field program had they been known at the time.

Jan's book made me mad at Coach Timmons all over again.  Yes, I too was kicked off the team at Kansas and I felt the circumstances behind my dismissal left a lot to be desired.  The book brought new life to old grievances that I had harbored against Timmy for many years and had finally come to terms with in the early 1990's.  

But Jan brought me back around in the way he ended a book.  He shared a letter from Timmy that he received after leaving for Alabama.  In it Timmons apologizes for what happened at Kansas.  The apology reminded me why I had made my own personal peace with coach.

This book, while a little ragged in its editing, is a great read.  The next edition promises to be filled with stories of Jan's adventures with Steve Prefontaine.  Yes, they were great friends.

Jan's contribution to the pole vault, in terms of competition, coaching and safety measures, makes him a giant in the sport.  Heck, even his daughter Chelsea was a world class vaulter.  Give the book a read or if you want, I'll share my copy!